{
  "slug": "afrobeat",
  "name": "Afrobeat",
  "aliases": [
    "afro-beat",
    "africa 70",
    "highlife funk"
  ],
  "description": "Highlife and Yoruba percussion welded to James Brown's rhythm section in Lagos from 1969, stretched to twenty minutes and pointed at the government. Not to be confused with the later, unrelated pop genre spelled afrobeats.",
  "origin": {
    "place": "Lagos, Nigeria",
    "year": 1969
  },
  "lineage": [
    {
      "genre": "funk",
      "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/funk/",
      "inherited": "The rhythm section and the discipline. Fela heard James Brown's band on tour and took the interlocking, unresolving groove home, where Tony Allen recombined it with highlife and made the pattern breathe rather than march."
    },
    {
      "genre": "highlife",
      "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/highlife/",
      "inherited": "The other half of the formula, and the half Lagos already had. Fela played highlife before he played anything else, and afrobeat's horn writing and guitar figures are West African long before James Brown is involved."
    },
    {
      "genre": "jazz",
      "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/jazz/",
      "inherited": "The solos and the length. Fela trained at Trinity College of Music and led a band that improvises over a vamp for fifteen minutes, which is a jazz structure with a highlife rhythm section inside it."
    }
  ],
  "bpm": {
    "min": 100,
    "max": 130
  },
  "updated": "2026-08-29",
  "url": "https://waxonia.com/genre/afrobeat/",
  "trackCount": 8,
  "curatedBy": [],
  "playlists": {},
  "tracks": [
    {
      "rank": 1,
      "trackKey": "fela-kuti-and-africa-70--zombie",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/fela-kuti-and-africa-70--zombie/",
      "title": "Zombie",
      "artist": "Fela Kuti & Africa 70",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/fela-kuti-and-africa-70/",
      "year": 1976,
      "label": "Coconut",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Twelve minutes calling the Nigerian army a column of unthinking bodies. The state responded by burning his compound down, which is the most direct review any record on this site has received.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "nineteen-seventy-six",
          "name": "1976",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/theme/nineteen-seventy-six/"
        },
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "dancing-to-bad-news",
          "name": "Dancing to Bad News",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/theme/dancing-to-bad-news/"
        },
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-desk-the-hundred",
          "name": "The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/selection/the-desk-the-hundred/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Fela%20Kuti%20%26%20Africa%2070%20Zombie",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=RUSg31Ignw4",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 2,
      "trackKey": "fela-kuti-and-africa-70--water-no-get-enemy",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/fela-kuti-and-africa-70--water-no-get-enemy/",
      "title": "Water No Get Enemy",
      "artist": "Fela Kuti & Africa 70",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/fela-kuti-and-africa-70/",
      "year": 1975,
      "label": "Coconut",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "The gentlest thing he made and the one people who dislike political music still love. A proverb, a horn line, and Tony Allen playing the most relaxed complicated drum part imaginable.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-desk-the-hundred",
          "name": "The Waxonia Desk — The Hundred",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/selection/the-desk-the-hundred/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Fela%20Kuti%20%26%20Africa%2070%20Water%20No%20Get%20Enemy",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=3Jx2qcKd1-0",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 3,
      "trackKey": "fela-ransome-kuti-and-africa-70--shakara",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/fela-ransome-kuti-and-africa-70--shakara/",
      "title": "Shakara",
      "artist": "Fela Ransome-Kuti & Africa 70",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/fela-ransome-kuti-and-africa-70/",
      "year": 1972,
      "label": "EMI",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "The template arriving fully formed: a fifteen-minute instrumental build, then the vocal, then the argument. Afrobeat's structure is settled here and barely changes afterwards.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-desk-one-subject",
          "name": "The Waxonia Desk — One Subject",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/selection/the-desk-one-subject/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Fela%20Ransome-Kuti%20%26%20Africa%2070%20Shakara",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=P2l7EPy1Svs",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 4,
      "trackKey": "fela-kuti-and-africa-70--sorrow-tears-and-blood",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/fela-kuti-and-africa-70--sorrow-tears-and-blood/",
      "title": "Sorrow Tears and Blood",
      "artist": "Fela Kuti & Africa 70",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/fela-kuti-and-africa-70/",
      "year": 1977,
      "label": "Kalakuta",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Recorded after the soldiers came. The groove is as buoyant as ever and the lyric is a list of what they left behind, and the gap between the two is the whole point.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Fela%20Kuti%20%26%20Africa%2070%20Sorrow%20Tears%20and%20Blood",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=9EXbJDodN9Y",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 5,
      "trackKey": "manu-dibango--soul-makossa",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/manu-dibango--soul-makossa/",
      "title": "Soul Makossa",
      "artist": "Manu Dibango",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/manu-dibango/",
      "year": 1972,
      "label": "Fiesta",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "A Cameroonian B-side that a New York DJ found in a Brooklyn record shop and turned into a disco hit. The first African record to cross over on a dancefloor rather than in a concert hall.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-desk-one-subject",
          "name": "The Waxonia Desk — One Subject",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/selection/the-desk-one-subject/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Manu%20Dibango%20Soul%20Makossa",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=PblSmVR7hCk",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 6,
      "trackKey": "ebo-taylor--heaven",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/ebo-taylor--heaven/",
      "title": "Heaven",
      "artist": "Ebo Taylor",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/ebo-taylor/",
      "year": 1977,
      "label": null,
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "Ghana's answer, and a reminder that highlife was never only Nigeria's inheritance. Taylor's guitar is looser and jazzier than Lagos allowed, and the record swings where Fela's marched.",
      "alsoOn": [
        {
          "kind": "curator",
          "slug": "the-desk-one-subject",
          "name": "The Waxonia Desk — One Subject",
          "url": "https://waxonia.com/selection/the-desk-one-subject/"
        }
      ],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Ebo%20Taylor%20Heaven",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=z54HkbHg8Ec",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 7,
      "trackKey": "tony-allen-and-the-afro-messengers--no-discrimination",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/tony-allen-and-the-afro-messengers--no-discrimination/",
      "title": "No Discrimination",
      "artist": "Tony Allen & The Afro Messengers",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/tony-allen-and-the-afro-messengers/",
      "year": 1979,
      "label": null,
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "The drummer steps out from behind the bandleader and it turns out the band's whole character was his. Everything you thought was Fela's is audibly still here.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Tony%20Allen%20%26%20The%20Afro%20Messengers%20No%20Discrimination",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=j7cj4JbApgA",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    },
    {
      "rank": 8,
      "trackKey": "femi-kuti--beng-beng-beng",
      "trackUrl": "https://waxonia.com/track/femi-kuti--beng-beng-beng/",
      "title": "Beng Beng Beng",
      "artist": "Femi Kuti",
      "artistUrl": "https://waxonia.com/artist/femi-kuti/",
      "year": 1998,
      "label": "Barclay",
      "isrc": null,
      "whyItMatters": "The son takes the form, shortens it to radio length and points it at sex rather than the state — and gets banned in Nigeria anyway. Proof the grammar survived the transfer.",
      "alsoOn": [],
      "links": {
        "spotify": {
          "url": "https://open.spotify.com/search/Femi%20Kuti%20Beng%20Beng%20Beng",
          "exact": false
        },
        "youtubeMusic": {
          "url": "https://music.youtube.com/watch?v=-EiimlzQ-o0",
          "exact": true
        }
      }
    }
  ]
}